Modern telecommunication service providers may allow access to their respectively telecommunication services by selling their customers prepaid or postpaid cellular service and data rate plans, which are associated with customer-specific service level agreements. A particular service provider may also require its customers to purchase proprietary communication devices, including: cellular phones, personal digital assistants, tablet computers, and the like, in order to access its wireless services. Today, these telecommunication devices are generally capable of accessing both licensed 2G, 3G, and 4G telecommunication networks, as well as unlicensed wireless local area networks (WLANs), such as public Wi-Fi® networks.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defines Wi-Fi® under its 802.11 wireless communication standards. Wi-Fi® access points, which are analogously referred to as “hotspots” or “WLANs,” typically provide for a communication range of approximately 20 to 30 meters when a Wi-Fi® hotspot is located indoors. Coverage can be extended when a Wi-Fi® hotspot is located outside, due to a lack of surrounding radio-interference structures, i.e., walls, furniture, and the like. Additionally, public Wi-Fi® can allow for relatively high-throughput data rate communications that may employ various data security technologies, including wired equivalent privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi® protected access (WPA), or Wi-Fi® protected access II (WPA2) encryption.
At present, most home and businesses Internet service subscribers utilize Wi-Fi® hotspots to provide wireless access to their local computing devices. As such, there has been a proliferation of many new, low-power WLANs (employing unlicensed spectrum) in most metropolitan cellular coverage areas that can experience fluctuating network congestion and/or interference. Further, these densely-populated metropolitan regions may include one or more cellular coverage area “dead spots,” where cellular service is unavailable, i.e., within a shielded structures, such as in a building or in a tunnel.
Wi-Fi® access points may be available to fill these coverage gaps and/or to provide for alternative cost-free (from the perspective of a telecommunication service provider) broadband Internet access. These distributed WLANs can enable various IP communication services, including voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling, video calling, and data transfer sessions associated with one or more software applications. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for telecommunication service providers to configure their proprietary devices to take advantage of untapped Wi-Fi® bandwidth.
However, WLAN service boundaries are not visible to users, and these small coverage areas may not be readily discoverable by a majority of modern telecommunication devices. For instance, a user may not be aware that WLAN coverage is available at his or her present location, and as such, the user may not attempt WLAN communications even when one or more high throughput Wi-Fi access points are available and accessible by the user's telecommunication device. Additionally, a user may be engaged in a WLAN communication session and not realize that he or she is about to exit a corresponding serving Wi-Fi® coverage area, thereby resulting in a failed call or data transfer.
Accordingly, there is an opportunity to improve upon WLAN discovery and notification to enhance a quality of service (QoS) provided by individual telecommunication service providers. Further, these service providers should explore new ways to improve upon their collective customers' quality of experience (QoE), in view of the proliferation of numerous WLAN access options.